Unassuming keyboardist who co-founded Depeche Mode
Andrew Fletcher 1961-2022
If in every successful band there has to be a quiet one, a solid and dependable one, then that was the role that Andy “Fletch” Fletcher played in Depeche Mode, said Dorian Lynskey in The Guardian. As the “truest believer in electronic pop” in the band, he was “an important sounding board in the studio”; he played synthesisers, but he wasn’t a virtuoso; and he didn’t sing or write songs. What he did was act as the diplomat, a bridge between the bigger egos; he was like the childhood friend that stars take with them on tour, to keep their feet on the ground. On top of that, he was, for many years, effectively the band’s manager: making deals, planning tours, and driving them forwards. It was largely thanks to him, then, that Depeche Mode was not one of those bands that imploded under the pressure that fame brings. Instead, like the Rolling Stones, it weathered the rows and the madness, and survived down the decades to become one of the biggest British bands of all time – selling 100 million albums, and playing to packed stadiums, “while retaining the outsider allure of a cult band”.
Andrew Fletcher was born in 1961 in Nottingham and grew up in Basildon, Essex, where his father worked in the cigarette factory. He described the town, one of eight New Towns built in the southeast of England after the Second World War, as a place where “everyone steals cars and goes to church on Sundays”. His parents were born-again Christians; and he went to church daily (by contrast, his bandmate Dave Gahan was something of a tearaway who stole cars). At Nicholas Comprehensive, Alison Moyet was a contemporary, and in the late 1970s, Fletcher formed his first band with his friend Vince Clarke. It was punkinfluenced, but when the likes of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the
Dark started hitting the charts with electronic music, they invited another friend, Martin Gore, to join – because he was “one of the few people in Basildon who had a synthesiser”. Soon after, Gahan came on board as lead vocalist, and suggested the name Depeche Mode, after a French fashion magazine.
They started playing in venues around Southend-on-Sea, while Fletcher worked as a clerk. He gave up his job when their second single, New Life, went to No. 11 and won the Essex boys an appearance on Top of the Pops.
Their next single, Just Can’t Get Enough, reached the top ten. Clarke, their songwriter, then left, to enjoy success with Yazoo and Erasure. Some thought the band might not survive Clarke’s departure, but Alan Wilder eventually replaced him on keyboards, Gore took over the songwriting, and their cheery, dance-friendly synth pop was replaced by a sound that was darker, richer, sexier and gothier, said The Daily Telegraph. By the end of the 1980s, Depeche Mode were selling out arenas all over the world.
The band responded by “going off the rails in spectacular fashion”. Gahan, the flamboyant, hip-swivelling frontman, almost died so many times from heroin overdoses that paramedics nicknamed him The Cat; Gore, the brooding songwriter, struggled with alcohol; and Fletcher, the bespectacled manager type, beloved by fans for his unstarry manner, had a breakdown. In the midst of this, Wilder left, but the others recovered to sell millions more albums, with Fletcher’s hand still on the tiller even after they had full professional management. He was, he once said, “the tall guy in the background, without whom this international corporation called Depeche Mode would never work”. He is survived by his wife of almost 30 years, Gráinne, and by their two children.